


He wears it

by mikhailosbitch



Series: Leather cord [2]
Category: The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: M/M, Post-The Death Cure, Safe Haven, movie verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-04-30 23:30:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14507835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikhailosbitch/pseuds/mikhailosbitch
Summary: Thomas tries to cope.Warning: This is not a fix-it.





	He wears it

**Author's Note:**

> When you're writing your original fic and it's just not working at the moment so you write something else in the middle of the night because suddenly you need to get it out.  
> Well, this is the result.  
> I wrote this in one go and I don't know how I feel about it.
> 
> Sorry for any mistakes, English is not my first language
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own anything from the books or the movies, I just love James Dashner for creating these characters.

Brenda teaches him how to swim. He doesn't know if he ever learned before but if he did it was swiped with the rest of his life before he woke up in the box. It's scary at first, the waves lapping up his throat, swallowing his whole body except for his head. Brenda tells him to breathe and he does. He clings to her hands that hold his own, keeping him afloat, and by the time his lips are blue he can lay on his back without sinking down and knows how to move his arms while swimming. It's a start.  
He shivers as he staggers onto the beach in nothing but his underwear, the wind biting at his bare skin and sand coating the soles of his feet. He tastes salt on his tongue. The leather cord around his neck is soaked, heavy with more than water.  
It takes longer to dry than the rest of him. He rubs his hair with a ratty towel, slips into warm clothes and solid boots. When night rolls around they sit by the fire, eating dinner, and Thomas feels the still wet necklace cold upon his skin.  
He doesn't join in on the conversation between Minho and Fry. He prefers to listen. To the crackling flames and the laughter of his friends and the words whispering around his neck.

He can't sleep. The glass of the small cylinder is cool against his finger's constant tapping. Thumb on one side of the capsule, fingers curled around the other, index finger tap tap tap. It's calming. It soothes the warm drops sliding down his temples into the pillow and his ears. It doesn't help the tightness in his throat. It doesn't make breathing easier.  
His other hand rests on the scar right above his heart. He can feel the bumps and lines underneath his shirt. Moving up and down with every breath he takes.  
The wound is several months old, long healed. It doesn't hurt anymore. It burns. And itches.  
The cord leaves an imprint on the back of his neck where he lays on his bed.

Minho wants to know what the words say. Thomas thinks he might be jealous. Minho didn't get the words after all, though maybe _he_ should be the one being jealous because he got the words and Minho didn't need them. Thomas does.  
Minho keeps up with him, takes his shit even when Thomas is being ridiculous with dry sobs creeping up his throat and out of his mouth, clogging up the air around him with pathetic heaves. He spews tears and bile and whimpers and it should be relieving but it's not.  
He doesn't try words. He doesn't know what to say. So Minho is the one who speaks. He sits on the edge of Thomas's cot and while Thomas trembles like aspen leaf and cries silent tears, he talks about the construction of the fishing boats and Fry's new kitchen that is way bigger than the one on the Glade. Mindless shit that is important and that Thomas clings to like to Brenda's hands when she taught him how to swim.

"What's that around your neck?" Jorge asks him. They're out on a run for medical supplies. They took the ship to the coast and while Vince and his crew went scavenging for precious things like gas and batteries, Thomas and Jorge look for syringes and antibiotics.  
When Thomas doesn't answer, he adds "Something with meaning, I guess" and at that Thomas nods.

"Newt" he croaks. It's out before he knows it.  
Jorge doesn't pry after that.

He has a hard time with knives. It goes as far as avoiding the dull blades of Fry's worn utensils. It's embarrassing, really, though the understanding looks he gets from Minho, Fry and Brenda, are worse.  
There's a machete in his hut, its blade rusty and crooked. He found it on a trip to the coast and now it lays on his table and he doesn't touch it.

It takes five months and three days until he breaks and of all things it's Gally's moonshine that does it. Gally pushes a jar into his hand and Thomas chugs it down. Ignores the cheers and music around him, focuses on the burning flavour eating through his body. He waits until Minho has his back to him to get up and leave, walking to the cliff behind their camp where the sea clashes with stone and the sound of the waves drowns out the conversation in his head about walls and grievers and runners. He doesn't empty the glass. Shatters it into pieces as he slams it onto the rocks, golden liquid mingling with foaming water. Then he screams. Takes his arm to his mouth, presses it to his lips to muffle the noise, and loses it.  
He stops when there is no more sound coming from his mouth, his voice gone with the wind, leaving tender vocal cords and a lump in his throat.  
It doesn't make breathing easier. Neither does gripping the cylinder dangling from the cord in front of his chest.  
Breaking doesn't help.

Thomas drags his fingers along the lines in the stone. Deep marks carved into the rock, not by himself but by Minho. He tilts his head, follows the path of his hand with his eyes.  
It's dawn, most people are still asleep. He sleeps about four hours a night and when he wakes up he comes here and traces a name in stone.  
There are other names that are important. Alby, Winston. They all matter. Teresa. Chuck. But Thomas only traces one.

He's on a supply run at the coast with Gally, Jorge and Brenda when he encounters a Crank.  
She's lost her ears and there is black all over her when she jumps at Thomas with high-pitched shrieks and broken nails trying to break through the fabric of his jacket.  
It's Brenda who keeps him from getting ripped into pieces, she shoots the Crank in the head and it goes down in an instant. Leaves Thomas lying on the ground, blood on his arms where his sleeves rolled up and shock in his veins. It feels better than it should.  
Brenda drags him to his feet without a word but her eyes say more than words could. This needs to stop. You're gonna get yourself killed.  
That evening, Thomas downs another jar of Gally's brew and falls asleep against Minho's shoulder.

He works. Helps Gally building huts, runs the forest with Minho where they pick berries and mushrooms, hunt squirrels and deer. He continues going on supply runs. He lives.  
He goes on. And he slips. Again and again, late night tapping, Minho talking, drinking, crying, tracing lines.  
Leather cord dangling from his neck.

The paper is wrinkled.  
Tattered at the edges, tiny pieces missing. The words are clearly visible, ink dark against yellowed pages.  
Dark eyes, light hair. Sarcastic comments, an odd accent. Darkness behind encouragement. Hopelessness hidden underneath an honest smile. A bad leg the only visible trace of what went really on in Newt's mind sometimes.  
His limp got worse when they had to walk long hours or run a lot. He kept going.

It's why Thomas gets up every day and goes on.  
Leather cord around his neck. He wears it.

**Author's Note:**

> Any kind of feedback, no matter if kudos, comments, criticism, would be highly appreciated!


End file.
